


young men

by brideofquiet



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Boxer Bucky Barnes, Bucky is 23/24; Steve is 17, Enemies to Lovers, First Time, Gyms, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Unsafe Sex, more precisely steve is a cactus, this depends on your definition of enemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:46:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28465536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brideofquiet/pseuds/brideofquiet
Summary: This is the closest Rogers has ever stood to him. Bucky lets himself look, from his heavy brow to the nose that’s been broken at least once, down to his skinny shoulders, bare because he’s stripped to just his undershirt. He’s young. Handsome, too, in an angular, austere kind of way. His knuckles are bruised.“How old are you anyway?” Bucky asks.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, implied James "Bucky Barnes/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 292





	young men

**Author's Note:**

> I started this thing in approximately January as an experiment in style and structure, then wrote the last third of literally today. I think it was originally inspired by an anecdote in George Chauncey's Gay New York; if anyone is particularly intrigued by that, I will endeavor to be more specific. This absolutely doesn't have a plot. I hope you enjoy it anyway! 
> 
> Say hello on [tweet time](https://twitter.com/bride_ofquiet) if you're nice. Merry new year, etc.

The kid shows up on a Monday evening with a bucket and a mop. At least, that’s the first time Bucky notices him. The crowd at the gymnasium is thinning out by the minute—men going home for their dinner or their bed. Normally Bucky would be headed out around this time too, but today, he lingers, set on throttling the punching bag till he’s too exhausted to think.

He spots the kid, and he drops his fists. He’s not a kid, not really—just young, in the face and probably everywhere else too. His mouth is sour like he’s mad about something, and if he wasn’t very clearly at work, Bucky would offer to show him how to work that anger out properly. Maybe another time, if he sees him around again. The kid starts mopping over by the weights. Bucky turns back to the bag and socks his fists into it a few times. His arms are heavier than they’d been a few minutes ago. He pulls the lace on one glove loose with his teeth, then the other, his ears full of the swish-swish sound of the mop.

When Bucky looks at him, the kid’s eyes are on the broad planks of the hardwood floor, intent on his cleaning. Bucky can’t think of why he expected any different.

He heads to the showers, and then hurries on home.

Bucky doesn’t make it back to the gym until Thursday. A couple years ago he would have given himself hell for that, but he doesn’t fight anymore—not for money. These days he’s just trying to keep as fit as he can; he doesn’t like the idea of going soft like the other men who work in his office. If the world’s headed in the direction the papers say it might be, he’ll be glad for it.

When he pushes into the locker room, he doesn’t see him at first. He strips down to his underpants and starts pulling his exercise clothes on, vaguely aware of the sound of scrubbing behind him. It’s only when he turns to prop his foot up on the bench, so he can tie his laces, that Bucky spots him crouched in the showers, bristle brush in hand as he scrubs the tile grout. The seat of his trousers are wet like he sat down at some point, or maybe fell. Bucky smiles down at his shoes and can’t keep the short laugh held back.

The kid’s head whips around. His blue stare is intense enough to make Bucky flinch.

“Something the matter?” the kid asks.

“Nope,” Bucky says. “Just—ah, just remembered a joke.”

“What?”

“Hm?”

“What’s the joke?”

“Oh.” Bucky frowns. The kid is still looking at him, neck craned around at an uncomfortable angle. “So there was this census taker, you see,” Bucky starts, his shoes still half-tied. “He comes looking for a Louis Goldberg, only the man at the door says no Louis lives there. The census taker asks the man’s name, and he tells him, ‘Louis Goldberg.’ ‘Then why did you say you didn’t live here?’ And Louis says, ‘You call this living?’”

The kid blinks at him for three long seconds. Then he snorts, and turns back to his scrubbing.

“Be here all week,” Bucky says, mostly to himself. The kid doesn’t seem to hear him.

The next week, Bucky doesn’t see him. He hopes the kid still has the job.

He lays out Weber by accident. He forgets that most of these guys at this gym are working class clerks like him—and not ones that used to box for pay. So he doesn’t knock him out on purpose, but he still feels like shit about it. Everyone else crowds around the poor guy as soon as it happens; Bucky has to shout to make room. He crouches by Weber’s head and gets a look at him. He’s still got his color, which is good—he groans when Bucky prods him in the side with his glove. Only another fifteen seconds or so, and Weber blinks his glassy eyes open.

“Hey, pal,” Bucky says, “I’m real sorry about that. You okay?”

“Barnes, you piece a shit.”

“Look, I’ll let you get a couple good licks in next time. Then we’ll be even.”

“Here,” another voice says.

Bucky looks up to see the kid holding a cup of water out, just outside the ropes. His mouth is pinched pale.

“Thanks,” Bucky says. “Hey, Weber, can you sit up? Got some water for you.”

“Careful,” the kid says. “He could have a concussion.”

Someone else in the ring says, not kindly, “What, you some kind of nurse?”

The kid looks past Bucky and squares his shoulders, but before he can spit his words out, Bucky tells him, “Don’t. ‘S’not worth it.”

And he must not appreciate that, because he gives Bucky a look like hellfire before he turns and stomps off.

Weber slams his fist right into Bucky’s eye socket next time they wind up in the ring together. So much for no hard feelings.

“Mother fucker,” Bucky hisses. He turns and leans on the rope, panting hard enough his chest heaves. Spots swim in his vision. It’s been a long damn time since he’s gotten hit that hard. When he finds it in himself to lift his head, he sees the kid looking right back at him, broom held loose in one hand like he’s forgotten it’s there. They hold each other’s gaze for longer than is polite or necessary.

Bucky raises his eyebrows. “What? You want a turn?”

The kid smiles, quick, and then fights the look off his face.

Weber laughs behind him. “Come on, Barnes. Rogers can sweep your sorry ass outta the ring when I’m through with you.”

“You know what? You’re a son of a bitch, Weber. We’re done here.”

Bucky clambers through the ropes and onto the gym floor, then stalks right past the kid and into the locker room.

So his name is Rogers.

He walks into the locker room while Bucky is showering on a Wednesday night.

“Oh,” Bucky hears him say. The shower is one big stall, mostly open to the lockers and benches—meaning Rogers just caught an eyeful.

Bucky turns to see the kid backing into the door, his hands full of cloths and cleaning solution. His cheeks are pink like fresh sunburn. “You’re fine,” Bucky says. He cuts off the water. “I’m all clean.”

“Thought it was empty. Sorry.”

It’s the first time Bucky’s seen him bashful. “Don’t be.”

He grabs his towel off the hook and starts drying. Rogers seems to remember why he’s here and hunches himself over a bench to clean it. They’re both quiet until Bucky is dressed, but he can’t help noticing the way Rogers isn’t looking at him.

“I’ll get out of your hair soon,” Bucky says, finishing up the buttons on his shirt. “Promise.”

“It’s no problem.”

“Sure it is. You’re trying to work—I’m in your way.”

Rogers finally looks at him again, but his eyes don’t land on Bucky’s face. Instead, it’s his hands. “How long have you been boxing?”

“Since I was younger than you.”

“I’m not that young.”

Bucky smiles; Rogers doesn’t. “Okay. Why, you looking for lessons?”

“No.”

“You want to get a drink with me? When you’re done.”

“No,” Rogers repeats, scowling properly at him now. He probably thinks Bucky has malicious intent. 

To be fair, Bucky’s not at all positive why he asked. He digs his thumb in his chin, rubbing, and watches Rogers follow the motion. “Fine. You change your mind—you let me know.”

By the time the door swings shut behind him, Bucky still isn’t sure which thing he meant.

“You have to leave.”

Rogers appears right next to the punching bag like some kind of apparition. “God in hell, kid. You want me to drop dead?” Rogers opens his mouth, but Bucky cuts him off. “Don’t answer that—it was rhetorical.”

“I mean it,” Rogers says. “I gotta lock up.”

Bucky glances around at the gymnasium for the first time in an hour. The high windows are all black, and worse than that, he’s the last man still sweating. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. You just have to leave.”

This is the closest Rogers has ever stood to him. Bucky lets himself look, from his heavy brow to the nose that’s been broken at least once, down to his skinny shoulders, bare because he’s stripped to just his undershirt. He’s young. Handsome, too, in an angular, austere kind of way. His knuckles are bruised.

“How old are you anyway?” Bucky asks.

“Twenty,” Rogers says, way too fast to be true.

“No, you’re not.”

“Why do you care?”

“Just curious. Do you—d’you want any help?”

Rogers narrows his eyes for a beat, then rolls them. “I’m the one getting paid to be here. Just scram.”

“Alright, alright. Mind if I hit the showers first? I’ll be quick.”

“Go on then.”

He’s halfway across the gym floor before he thinks to turn and say, “I’m Bucky, by the way. Bucky Barnes.”

Rogers is already scrubbing the bag clean with a wet cloth. “Yeah, I know.” He takes a gut-deep breath. “I’m Steve.”

“Rogers. Right?”

His gaze is sharp. Bucky smiles for him, sweet around the edges. “Yeah.”

“See you, Steve.”

Steve Rogers. Bucky would bet he’s seventeen if he’s a day.

The next time Bucky lays eyes on Steve, he’s half-obscured by another man’s body. Bucky was on his way to the gym, just a block or so away, when he heard the dull thuds of someone getting wailed on coming from the narrow alley between two row houses. He barrels into the gap without thinking about it. Only when he’s close does he recognize the little blond fighting with all he’s got against some overgrown weed of a redhead.

“Hey,” Bucky says, and grabs Steve’s attacker by the belt, yanking him backward. “Leave him the hell alone!”

“What’s it matter to—”

Before the guy can get his sentence out, Bucky lands a neat punch square in his solar plexus. Enough to knock the wind out of him—not enough to cause any real damage. The man scrunches in on himself, and Bucky shoves him out of the shadows and into the street, back where he came from. He stumbles but keeps going. Cowardly now that he’s outnumbered.

Bucky isn’t expecting the hit to his kidney. “Ow! Hey!”

He spins around to find Steve with his fists up, bleeding from his nose and his hair all mussed. “Why’d you assume it was him that started it, huh?”

“Kid, I’m not about to fight you.”

“Why not? You think I can’t take it?”

“I’m sorry—Rogers, I’m sorry, you’re making me say it—but I know you can’t.”

Rogers is panting, heavy and hard enough that Bucky thinks maybe he has a problem—asthma like his baby sister has. His face is set in furious stone. He surges Bucky in a flurry of fists, but either he isn’t trying or he really is that weak, because his blows land like heavy rain, more annoying than anything else.

“Hey, hey—Rogers, hey!” 

Bucky grabs him by the forearms easy enough. He backs him into the side of the house, and Rogers thrashes against his grip, spitting curses at him through his teeth. His bony knees clobber Bucky about as bad as his fists had. It’d take nothing short of Bucky pressing his whole body into him to make him stop—but that’s untenable. So he lets himself get pummeled while Steve shouts bloody murder. Some part of Bucky wonders if he’s the only guy in Brooklyn who gives a damn, when no one comes running to see what’s the matter. 

“Let me go, let me go, fuck you, Barnes—let me go!”

“You hold still, and I will.”

“You’re an asshole!”

“Uh huh, tell me about it. What else am I?”

Eventually Steve must tire himself out. His rioting quiets, and then his body starts to go limp—more out of defeat and exhaustion, Bucky thinks, than any real compliance. It’s only when he’s finally, blessedly still that Bucky notices how his eyes have filled with thick tears. They look blue as all hell, set in that anger-flushed face.

“What do you want with me?” Steve chokes out.

Bucky breathes through his open mouth. “I don’t know,” he says.

So he lets him go. Steve guts him with an elbow on his flight out of the alley, and then he’s disappearing around the corner—gone.

The bruise on his side isn’t bad—certainly not so dire as the black eye Weber left him with. It barely turns green. Bucky finds himself prodding at it most nights when he’s lying in bed, shirt rucked up to his chest. He’s almost sad when it fades after three days. He tries very hard not to think about what that feeling means, but it’s simple: he liked Steve’s hands on him, and the memory of it, even if the only tender part about it was the bruise he left behind.

On a Saturday, he decides he ought to be more observant and visits his sister for lunch. He can’t call it avoidance if he’s seeing his family, and Becca welcomes him like she hasn’t seen him in months. That’s not quite true, but it’s been long enough that he doesn’t begrudge her for acting like it.

“You could have come earlier,” she tells him, pushing him into a seat at the table. “You could have gone with Simon to the synagogue.”

“Becca,” Bucky says.

“What? It’s true—you could have. What were you doing? Sleeping.”

“You sound like Ma.”

“I do not.” She calls through the doorway to the rest of her family. “I don’t tell you to get married.”

“But you think it.”

“No, I don’t, and I’ll make you leave my house if you keep making up stories about me.” She sighs and cups his cheek. “I worry, though. All you do these days is go to work, go to that gym.”

“You got some ideas for how I should spend my time?”

“At least you don’t fight anymore. I hated that.”

“That money put food on our table.”

“I know, I know. I can be glad it’s over anyway, can’t I? Ah, boys,” she says as her two young sons traipse into the dining room together. “Have you washed your hands?”

It’s a nice afternoon of lunch, card playing, and reading a chapter book to his nephews. When he leaves, after havdalah, he tells Becca that he’ll be back, and sooner. She kisses his cheek and tells him he’d better.

Bucky ends up at a bar that night—then, later, in another man’s bed. It’s not the first time. It won’t be the last.

His heart isn’t in it. He jumps rope for twenty minutes, hardly breaks a sweat, and then gives up. Maybe it’s the twinge of a hangover. Maybe Becca is right—maybe he ought to find something else to occupy him. The clock that hangs over the ring tells him that if he hustled, he could make it for _mincha._ He doesn’t want to do that either, but he could.

Steve picks up the rope he dropped.

Bucky startles, and it takes him a few long seconds to find his whits again. “I can—” he tries. He means to offer to clean up his own mess, but Steve just raises an eyebrow at him, and starts jumping. His form is fine but his breathing is all wrong, but maybe he can’t help that. “You supposed to do that on the job?”

“Not working right now,” Steve says, breath labored.

“Oh.” He’s never seen Steve here for anything other than cleaning, but it could be that he’d just missed him. Bucky isn’t usually here in the afternoons, when it’s crowded like it is. “I’ll just—”

He gets two steps in before Steve drops the rope. “Bucky,” he says—the first time he’s ever said it.

“What?” Bucky spins to face him. “What is it?”

“The other day. I…” Steve hangs his head, his teeth gnashing together. “I’m sorry.”

If Bucky expected anything from Steve, it certainly wasn’t that. “It’s okay.”

“It isn’t.”

“Really, Rogers—Steve. We’ve all got” —he waves a hand through the air— “shit. Not gonna blame you for that.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Kid, what do you want? You want me to be angry with you?”

Steve’s eyes are plaintive. “No, I don’t want that, no. You just—I don’t understand. Why you’re not. Angry, I mean.”

“Look,” Bucky sighs. He’s not sure what he’s about to say, but as his eyes drag over Steve’s narrow frame, something settles in him. “You wanna make it up to me, let me teach you how to hit something properly. Will you?”

The suspicion on Steve’s face only ebbs when Bucky tilts his head and smiles, an encouragement. “Fine.”

“Great. C’mere, we’re starting right now.”

Bucky’s no trainer, but he’s been on the other side enough to have a vague idea of what he’s doing. And besides, he’s not trying to teach this kid how to win a prize fight—he just wants him to know enough that Bucky doesn’t worry a hole in his own stomach about him. If he takes longer than he needs to to wrap Steve’s hands, no one has to know. If he touches his waist, he’s only showing him where his power comes from. When he gets closer than he needs to—well, he’ll pay for it later, when he’s all by himself.

At the end of an hour, Steve’s fist connects with the punching bag with a solid, powerful thud. He grins with his teeth, and Bucky feels the thrill down to his toes.

Steve takes him up on that drink. Not after the first lesson—when they’re done with that, he mumbles some excuse so weak Bucky can’t even remember it, and ducks out the gymnasium doors without even showering. Off somewhere in a hurry. Bucky thinks about the little noises he made while exerting himself for much too long, afterward.

They’re still playing like top hits radio hour in his head when he sees Steve again, later in the week. He’s on the floor in the locker room, wiping out the bottoms of the lockers. Bucky falters in the doorway, his stomach doing strange loop-the-loops over the site of Steve on hands and knees that way. Before he can recover, Steve looks around and sees him—and then looks away, just as fast.

His ears are redder than they were a moment ago, which is just goddamn curious.

Bucky shakes himself out and says, “Hiya, Rogers.”

“Hi.”

“Doin alright?”

“Oh, peaches and cream, thanks.”

It’s not funny enough to warrant the way Bucky laughs, but his howling makes Steve’s mouth twitch into a half-smile. It looks good on him. He’s so surly most of the time. “Good, good.”

“And—um. You?”

“You know what? I think you were being facetious, but I mean it: I really am peaches and cream today, Rogers.”

He deserves the eye roll he gets. “Bully for you,” Steve says.

Later, when the sweat’s still dripping down Bucky’s face but he’s not panting anymore, Rogers walks up to him with something in his hands. Bucky expects a duster, something similar—but what Steve holds up to him is a pair of old ratty boxing gloves. “I found these,” he says. “Lost and found. Been there a while.”

“Huh.” Bucky straightens and flicks his head, trying to keep his damp hair out of his eyes. “Yeah? They fit?”

“They fit okay.” 

“Neat.”

Steve gives an almighty huff. “You’re gonna make me ask.”

“Well, since you’re grown, like you said. Yes, I am.”

His hands flex hard on the gloves, and his gaze is somewhere near Bucky’s hip when he says, “Will you teach me some more?”

“Magic word, Rogers.”

“Goddamn you, Barnes, you’re gonna be the first person I lay out. Please will you teach me.”

Bucky swears Steve’s glare could break glass. He laughs anyway, because if there’s one thing he really wants to teach Steve, it’s how to lighten up. “Okay, kid, of course. When? When you’re done cleaning?”

His face smooths out into something that might be surprise. “Yeah. If you don’t mind waiting.”

“Happy to.”

Bucky keeps himself occupied with calisthenics while Steve gets back to work scrubbing and sweeping and mopping the place down. He usually arrives too late in the day to appreciate Steve’s handiwork, but he witnesses it firsthand tonight: the gleaming floors and the clean equipment, every last inch wiped down. Maybe this is Steve’s first job—though Bucky doubts that. Probably he’s just a very dedicated kind of person. Or he needs the money bad enough he’ll break his back to get it. Bucky’s lucky that feeling is just a memory to him now.

The gym empties out, slow and steady till it’s silent save for the sound of Steve going about his business. When he finds Bucky again, Bucky is settled onto a bench to rest, properly tuckered out for the first time in a while. He’ll feel those sit-ups all day tomorrow. The quiet footsteps and the smell of bleach are what make him open his eyes.

“You’re tired,” Steve says. He tries hard not to sound disappointed.

“Hey, so what? I promised.”

“It’s okay. You can go home.”

“Nope. Don’t wanna, not gonna. Where’d you put those gloves? You remember how to wrap your hands? I can do it for you again—”

“I remember,” Steve says, his eyes alight.

Bucky fights off his disappointment better than Steve did. “Well, go on then, champ.”

Steve remembers more than just how to wrap his hands. His muscle memory’s damn near perfect, in fact, which makes Bucky wonder if nobody in his life knows he picks fights, or if it’s simply that nobody has ever cared enough to teach him how to do it properly. For Steve’s sake, he hopes it’s the former. Either way—Bucky is here now. Steve throws punch after punch till the faintly defined muscles in his arms must be aching. His breathing gets better, too, when Bucky sets a hand low on his belly and tells him to breathe into the touch. The flush on Steve’s cheeks, burning down into the neck of his undershirt, is from exertion; Bucky has no excuse for his own color. He wonders what Steve would smell like, under the stench of all that cleaner.

“You’re a natural,” Bucky tells him, when he makes them stop for a break.

Steve gulps down his mouthful of water and smiles, slight. “Thanks.”

Bucky didn’t mean it as much of a compliment, but he’ll let Steve have it if he wants it. “Probably ought to call it quits for the night.”

“Oh.” Steve straightens, looking around like he’s just noticed the place is empty, even though it’s been that way for two hours. “Right. I guess you want to head out.”

“I’m tired of being here anyway.” It’s stupid, but he says it anyway: “We could get that drink, too, since you’re in the mood to change your mind lately.”

“Okay,” Steve says, hardly a beat of hesitation. Bucky snaps upright to look at him. “Just one, though.”

“Yeah. Okay, one, yeah.”

They skip the showers, which Bucky will regret later, but it’s been long enough since he was sweating that he thinks he’ll keep for a while. Steve doesn’t have a clean set of clothes to change into; he’d trained in his work wear. Bucky tries to lend him a shirt, but he declines. Probably would have swallowed him whole anyway, given that Bucky’s got a few inches on him in both height and width. It’s late for a weekday but not so late that everything has closed down. After Steve locks up the gym, they set out around the block, to a bar that Bucky’s only been to once or twice. It isn’t his kind of crowd, but it’ll do—and he happens to know they don’t typically ask after someone’s age.

They sit on barstools and don’t talk much while they drink their beer. Steve’s lip curls on his first sip, but Bucky doesn’t goad him about it—wants to, but doesn’t. It’s not as if Bucky loves the taste either, and he’s had it plenty enough to know. He chatters about this and that, easy topics like the Dodgers and the weather, while Steve hums and keeps quiet. It’s all pleasant and boring and perfectly acceptable. The most interesting thing Bucky learns is how Steve got his job in the first off, through the owner’s wife, who was treated by Steve’s mother in a TB ward.

“Tough job,” Bucky comments.

“Yeah.”

And that’s all Steve will tell him.

They leave not long after that, beer glasses empty on the bar top. Steve walks with him for a block before thumbing toward a side street.

“Goodnight, Steve.”

“Yeah. Uh, thanks, for—”

“Don’t mention it.”

Steve offers him a tight-lipped smile before he spins and walks away. It’s a cold night. Bucky watches Steve’s breath cloud the air till a turn around a corner swallows him up. Then he heads home and sleeps harder than he has in weeks.

Nothing much changes between them, despite this newfound camaraderie, or whatever it is they have now. Steve is as prickly a pear as ever—not that Bucky minds. In fact it’s one of the things he likes about him. He smiles and waves from across the gym floor; Steve huffs and frowns back at him. 

“Do you have any friends?” Bucky asks him once, while he’s waiting for the water to get lukewarm in the showers.

“What kind of question is that?” Steve says.

“An honest one. I wonder.”

“That’s a rude thing to say.” The towel Steve’s holding drops back into the bucket with a splash. “Of course I have friends.”

“Well, am I one of them?”

“Barnes.”

“Yes or no question I’m asking here, Rogers. We’re pals, right?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I guess. Get in the fuckin shower, I can smell you from here.”

Bucky laughs and laughs. God above, this kid delights him.

Steve is sweeping when Bucky’s between rounds, breathing hard bent over the ropes. He catches Bucky’s eye and raises one eyebrow.

“Hey,” Bucky calls to him, grinning.

“You’re getting your ass whooped,” Steve says. He points to his nose. “You got blood.”

Sure enough, when Bucky wipes his nose, his wrist comes away flecked with blood. “Mm. So I do.”

“Are you gonna do something about that?” Steve’s leaning on the broom handle now, hip cocked, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

“I’ll try not to make too bad a mess, kid, I promise.”

He turns back into the ring to face Morici again, only to find him leering—not at Bucky, but past him, at Steve, who’s resumed his sweeping.

“You giving it to him?” Morici asks.

“What?”

“Come on. That’s a fairy if I ever saw one. Bet he takes it nice, huh?”

The next round is a blur. Morici ends up on the ground, curled on his side and clutching his gut. This time Bucky doesn’t feel so bad about it—he should, but he doesn’t, not till Steve is rushing over with wide eyes. He looks from Morici to Bucky and back again.

“Jesus, Buck,” Steve says.

“He’s fine—he’s being a crybaby.” It’s true; Morici can’t take a punch to save his fuckin life. “He had it coming, anyway.”

Steve’s face turns dark and stony. When he looks at Bucky, he’s breathing hard like he was in the ring too. “I thought you weren’t a bully.”

Bucky doesn’t see him again the rest of the evening.

He tries to apologize. Steve flatly ignores him for three days. It’s not as if Bucky can blame him. His apologies aren’t worth a damn. All he wants is back in Steve’s good graces, but maybe that makes him just as lousy. Did he ever have Steve’s favor in the first place? He can’t be sure; the kid’s a hard damn book to read. But he likes to think so.

There’s a way out—just telling Steve what Morici said would prove he’s not some lowlife, that he had a reason to hit him. Maybe not that hard, but it’s something. The problem with that is—the problem—

The morning sun is shining and Bucky is fresh off a fuck when he spots none other than Steve Rogers marching down the opposite sidewalk. This is the first time he’s seen him out and about, though Bucky supposes it was only a matter of time; he assumed they live in the same neighborhood, even if he never confirmed that. Feeling more loose-limbed than he has in days, Bucky ducks across the street to cut Steve off. Except that the kid walks with his head down, so instead of noticing Bucky, he barrels right into him.

“Hey!” Steve shouts. “What are you—”

When he gets a look at who’s holding him upright, Steve’s violent frown loses its hold.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says. “I thought you saw me.”

Steve shrugs Bucky’s hands off him. “I didn’t.”

“Well, yes, I figured that out myself. You scuffed the hell out of my left shoe.”

“Oh. Sorry. I can—”

“Don’t worry about it. Hey, where are you headed anyway? You want company?”

“Aren’t you busy?”

The passers-by on the sidewalk are losing their patience with the two of them, standing in the middle of it. Bucky reaches for Steve’s shoulder again and guides him off to the side, where they can linger. Women’s dress clothes glare at them in bright colors through the shop window.

“Nah, I’m not busy. Where are you going?”

“Nowhere.”

Bucky snorts. “Fine. If you’re going nowhere, you’ve got time for lunch then, huh? You hungry?”

“No.”

“Dammit, Steve. Look.” He gets closer, so Steve either has to look at him or make it very obvious that he’s unwilling to. “I thought about it, and you’re right. I shouldn’t have done that to Morici. Even if he said—well, it doesn’t matter.”

Steve’s face shifts. “Wait. What did he say?”

“Nothin.”

“Bullshit. What did he say, Bucky?” 

Bucky pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes. If he lies, what does it bother? Not a single thing. He blinks his eyes open to find Steve staring at him, hard like he’s mad—but maybe not at Bucky, not anymore.

“He implied,” Bucky says, his voice low enough to keep from carrying on the busy street, “that I’ve been screwing you.”

The angry look slips clean off Steve’s face, replaced by nothing at all. “Oh,” he says, so toneless Bucky can’t gauge his reaction. “And you were offended.”

“He was—Steve, he was disrespecting you.” 

“So you hit him.”

“Well—yes. I did.”

Then, of all the damn things to do, Steve laughs.

“What’s so funny?”

“Fuck. Nothing. Okay, Barnes, fine, let’s go have that lunch.”

Somehow, after a strange conversation where Steve admits he doesn’t have the money on hand to pay for his meal, refuses to let Bucky pick up the tab or even lend him money, but is willing to accept food that’s already been bought and paid for—somehow they wind up at Bucky’s place.

“Nothing fancy,” Bucky tells him, holding the door open to usher Steve inside. His cheeks are still flushed from the argument. Discussion. Whatever the hell that had been, out on the street.

“I seem like the fancy type to you?” Steve says with a hum.

“Well.” Bucky holds back a laugh as he latches the lock. “No.”

Steve has already drifted away from him, eyes intent like the damn inspector. Bucky shoves his hands in his pockets and watches him. There’s not all that much to get a look at, considering Bucky’s got no sense for interior design and doesn’t have much in the way of personal effects. Most of what he has was begged off neighbors by his mother, who keeps an eye out for anyone lugging furniture up and down her street. The only thing that Bucky’s accumulated himself is the rickety bookshelf and the things stuffed into it: paperbacks, records, comics, magazines with articles he might like to read again.

Of course it’s the thing Steve hones in on.

“You live alone,” Steve says, his thumb trailing book spines.

“Yeah,” Bucky huffs. “You don’t, I’m guessing.”

“I got about four roommates, I think. They’re never there at the same time so it’s hard to keep track.”

Maybe it’s not a joke, but Bucky laughs. “Isn’t that just called family, Rogers?”

“I don’t have any family.” He says it like it doesn’t matter to him, his eyes trained on Bucky’s beat-up Victrola. “Does this thing work?”

“What do you mean, you don’t have family?”

Finally, Steve looks at him. “They’re all dead, Buck. Can I put on a record or not?”

“You—you… Sure. Go ahead.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“I’ll get that food started.”

He throws together something plain that his mother would be ashamed of, but it’s not as if she ever taught him properly anyway. Steve doesn’t seem to mind; he eats his fill perched in Bucky’s armchair while Bucky sits on the edge of the bed. Normally, when he’s alone, he just eats at the counter. He’s never had to feel self-conscious about that before. Steve hardly says a word, much less a bad one, but Bucky feels nervous anyway.

When they finish, Steve takes the plates and cuts the sink on.

“Hey now,” Bucky says. “Don’t you do enough cleaning? I’ll get them later.”

“You shouldn’t let dishes sit.”

“Well, they’re my dishes. Let me worry about them.”

Bucky only realizes how close he’s standing when Steve turns to face him. His hands are all wet. There’s no fight in his face like Bucky expects to see, though. Those blue eyes are wide, almost innocent; close enough that Bucky feels guilty for the way his own gaze falls to Steve’s mouth. For once it isn’t set like stone. Instead his lips are parted, and damp in the center.

There’s no good explanation for why he does it. Later, when he’ll try to think of it, all his mind can give him is that image: Steve’s soft mouth in the middle of his sharp, lightning storm face.

Steve’s lips are limp and unsure when Bucky presses his own against him. Bucky tries not to crowd him—doesn’t want to scare him off—but he puts his hands on Steve’s waist like he’d do with a sweet girl his mother introduced him to. He kisses him gently, sweetly—short.

Like clockwork, Steve’s hands fist in Bucky’s shirtfront. He ducks his head to break their connection, then shoves Bucky backward.

“Shit,” Bucky breathes, while his blood leaves his face. He scrambles for an excuse. Anything that might keep him innocent too. “Steve—” 

He tries to offer Steve his space, but Steve’s fists are locked in the fabric of his shirt. He holds Bucky in the place and breathes out hard. His eyes are screwed shut when he says, “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, half-frantic. “Steve.”

“I thought you were different. I thought you might be my friend.”

“Steve, I am. I am your friend—Steve, look at me.”

When it happens, it turns out it’s not what he wanted. Steve’s eyes are daggers. “You think I didn’t know what all those guys at the gym say about me? I know they all think you’re sticking it in me. You think Morici’s the first person to say something? No. He’s just the first one to say it to you.”

“What?”

The breath that rips out of Steve’s chest is violent. “You really are stupid.”

“Steve—”

He rattles Bucky by the chest and then lets go of him. His face is flushed angry now. “Don’t try to save face, Barnes. You’re a bully and you’re chickenshit and I thought you were different, but you’re just making passes at me too.”

“Passes? Steve.”

Grabbing him is a mistake. “Don’t _touch_ me!” he yells, yanking himself away hard enough his back hits the counter. When he finally looks at Bucky again to stare knives at him, his eyes have gone red and watery. He wipes a hand at his face but it’s too late; Bucky already saw the tears on his cheeks.

“Don’t touch me,” he repeats, hushed and rough.

Then he tears past Bucky, slams the door on his way out, and he’s gone.

Bucky thinks about finding a new gymnasium. But that would just prove Steve right, wouldn’t it? Besides, he can’t stop thinking about what Steve said. Passes. He sticks around partly just to keep his eye on the other men, and wonders if he’s the same as them.

  
  


They don’t speak for a month. He sees Steve; Steve sees him, but it’s as silent as static between them now. Steve won’t look at him, but his mouth does that lemon twist thing every time Bucky comes into the gym while he’s working.

He’s hurt, and insulted, and Bucky’s not quite sure what to do about it. So he doesn’t do much of anything. A tight-lipped smile every now and then is about all the peace offering he ever gets the chance to give. It isn’t enough. He hates himself for that.

  
  


Bucky is at the bag, giving it the world’s shittiest throttle, when Steve walks up and throws a dry towel in his face.

“The hell—” he starts, grabbing for it before it falls to the floor.

“You’re fuckin dripping,” Steve says.

He stalks away. Bucky wipes his face and his neck, and gives it another go.

To say he’s expecting it would be too much, but Bucky isn’t all that surprised when Steve corners him in the empty locker room that same evening. His fists are bundled up but his eyes are on the floor. Bucky lets the towel he’d been pressing to his hair slide down to hang around his shoulders, and waits for Steve to speak up.

“Can you just—” Steve’s teeth gnash together. “Just tell me why.”

“Why …?”

“Don’t play stupid, Barnes.”

“According to you, I don’t have to play.”

“Why did you kiss me?”

Bucky hisses an inhale and looks around, but the locker room is lifeless. Last man standing, as always. “I don’t know,” he says.

“You’re a real ignoramus.” The kid is still glaring at the ground. He shakes his head. “I know what I look like, Barnes. I know all you assholes think I’ll just take it for you.”

“Rogers, please—”

“But nobody else ever said they wanted to kiss me.”

“Oh.” Bucky’s brow furrows—then smooths out into clean horror. “Hell. That was your first kiss?”

Steve’s nostrils flare. He won’t admit it but Bucky knows the truth when it’s plain in front of him.

“Steve, look at me, will you?” He just stares at the floor some more, so Bucky takes a step closer and reaches out. He half-expects Steve to snap teeth at him, but he doesn’t—when Bucky grips him by the shoulder, he slowly starts to lift his head. Their eyes finally meet, sky and sea. “I’m sorry they speak to you like that. I didn’t mean to treat you the same way. Swear it.”

Steve chews on that a while, searching Bucky’s face. “How did you mean to treat me?”

Bucky drops his hand back to his side. “I—didn’t. I made a mistake.”

“I don’t believe you really think that.”

“Why not?”

“Because of how you did it.”

“Alright. How was that?”

“Like in films.”

Hell. “You’re so young,” Bucky sighs, half to himself—but they’re still standing so close.

“I’m not. I told you, I’m—”

“Twenty, yeah, I know what you said.”

“And what, you don’t believe me?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why do you give a damn anyway?”

Bucky hums and casts his eyes toward the ceiling, then back to Steve, who’s bristling around the edges now. “You got all this bravado, kid, I don’t know how you keep it up.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I’m very aware.”

Steve huffs out a breath and leaves it there, half-deflating. “It’s just that…”

“What? Just tell me.”

“Maybe I liked it.”

Fuck. “No.”

“Maybe we could—we could try it again,” Steve says. He looks up at Bucky through his thick fringe of lashes and—

He’s flirting. Trying to, anyway.

This conversation is going to give Bucky whiplash. “You just called me an asshole and said you didn’t want it.”

“From them, I don’t. I changed my mind about you.”

“What the hell goes on in here, huh?” He reaches forward to tap Steve’s skull and gets a swat to the hand for his trouble. “I could spend my whole life trying to figure it out. I’d fail.”

“Just kiss me again, Bucky. I’m not asking much.”

He’s asking everything. “Rogers. The answer is no.”

Steve’s mouth pinches, and it hurts Bucky to see his lips like that. “Fine. Fuck you anyhow, Barnes.”

Then he stomps off again. The sound of his heavy tread rings in Bucky’s head for hours.

  
  


He goes to his mother’s for Shabbos lunch, and spends the afternoon in the parlor with his sisters, telling stories they ought to be too old to want to hear anymore. Ruthie is nearly twelve, and Johanna is seventeen. Steve’s age—what Bucky thinks of as Steve’s age.

He tries not to think about him, and lets his sisters cajole him into taking them out for a soda once the sun has set.

When he leaves, he doesn’t go home. He ducks into a dimly lit establishment and asks the bartender, “Something stronger than soda, please.”

Bucky sits there with his vodka, and it doesn’t take long. A man with broad shoulders and a jaw that matches finds him sitting on his stool and tells Bucky he likes his shoes.

He never did get rid of that scuff. Part of him likes it too much.

“Leave with me,” the man tells him.

Bucky looks at him, and thinks about it. The man is leering as if he’s already picturing Bucky on all fours; Bucky can practically see it manifest in his hazel eyes. Does he want that tonight? He could; he’d like it, once it started. He usually does. But something makes his stomach ship-sway, and he looks back down at his glass.

“Thanks,” he says. “Maybe another time.”

If the man bothered to plead with him, to be sweet, Bucky might change his mind. But all he does is get up and move along to the next shiny shoes that catch his eye.

Bucky doesn’t know who to expect when there’s a knock on his door on Sunday afternoon. He throws the latch, and there’s Steve scowling up at him from the hallway.

“Hello,” he says. Surly—hangdog.

“Rogers?”

“You need your eyes checked? ‘Course it’s me.”

“Why?” Bucky swallows and blinks. “Are you here, I mean.”

“I came to see you.”

“Clearly. What for?”

“Are you going to let me in?”

“Suppose I have to,” Bucky mutters. Steve scurries past him and into the apartment. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you.”

He looks around just as intently as the last time he was here, his feet flat on the floor. Bucky leans against the locked door to watch him. If Steve is going to barge in on him this way, Bucky will let him lead the conversation.

Steve crosses and uncrosses his arms. “Do you like living alone?”

“I like the independence. It can get lonely, sometimes.”

Steve’s blond hair flops into his eyes as he nods. He scans the room again, looking for something to latch on to—avoiding the elephant in the room, which is him. It’s strange to seem him stand here again, where Bucky kissed him. They haven’t spoken since Bucky refused to do it again.

Steve grabs for a tin box on the counter and flips the lid. “What’s this? Recipe cards.”

“My mother’s,” Bucky tells him. Each of his favorites in her sloping script. “For my wife.”

“Oh. So you’re the marrying type.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Then what type are you?”

“Hell if I know.”

Steve’s brow folds. He hums to himself as he flips through cards, reading. “I don’t understand you either you know.”

“That’s news. I thought you had me all figured out.” Bucky means it as a joke, but Steve’s frown just deepens. He thumbs at a card; Bucky pictures the one for challah—Steve’s hands, too broad for his body, kneading dough. “Why are you here, Steve?”

He sighs, small, like it costs him. “I wanted to see you.”

It’s not an answer. It’s too much. “Steve,” Bucky says. His name tastes like thunder.

Steve replaces the tin and crosses the room. Bucky ought to back away from him; he doesn’t. It’s not as if there’s anywhere for him to go. Steve’s hands are cool on his chest. He puts firm fingers against Bucky’s neck and clutches his skin.

It takes getting on tiptoes, but he gets his mouth level with Bucky’s and presses them together. The kiss is off-center and inept. He pulls back as quick as he began.

Surely he can feel Bucky’s pulse pounding with his hands where they are. The way his fingers dig into Bucky’s skin—he knows it. There’s no denying the way Steve’s touch makes him feel. His body wants to scream it out loud.

“Don’t lie to me again, Bucky,” Steve says. “Please.”

How could he? He takes Steve’s face in his hands, his thumbs against the pink apples of his cheeks. Maybe he ought to be done lying altogether. To Steve—to himself. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Steve’s voice is soft and damn near sweet when he asks, “Will you kiss me again?”

There’s nothing left for Bucky but to oblige him. A storm brews in his chest as he leans in close again. Steve pulls him down the last inch and crashes their lips together. He isn’t very good at this, Bucky realizes, but there’s something to be said for initiative. It’s not as if it matters; Bucky is burning up anyway. He cups the back of Steve’s head and holds him steady; slows him down.

They kiss, and kiss, and Steve learns fast. Each of them makes soft sounds, and Steve seems to warm in Bucky’s grip. When they stop he presses his friction-red lips together like he’s sealing in the sensation.

“I like that,” he murmurs. He tangles his hand in Bucky’s hair and lets Bucky walk them backward toward the bed. 

In for a penny. If Bucky’s letting himself have what he wants now, he may as well take it all.

They undress separately and climb onto the mattress together. Steve’s naked body is spindly and narrow—as angular as his face. The glowing pink color in his face spreads like watercolor over his skin the longer Bucky looks at him.

“What?” he says, and tries to cover himself.

“Don’t,” Bucky says. He takes Steve by the wrists. “Let me.”

Bucky pushes him back into the blankets, and Steve turns red, red, red when Bucky settles above him. “Breathe, kid.

Steve sucks in a balloon breath. “I am.”

“Tell me to stop.”

“I don’t want you to.”

His skin shivers when Bucky leans in to kiss him again. He kisses his mouth first, for kindness, before he trails away toward the rest of him. This close to his chest, Bucky can hear the faint wheeze in his lungs. “We don’t have to,” Bucky says.

Steve gasps as Bucky’s hands graze his ribs. “Just fuck me.”

“Do you even know what that means?”

That earns him a pinched ear. “It means you put your cock in my rear end like a cunt.”

“Good God,” Bucky says, and pinches Steve’s thigh in return, hard enough that he squeals. “It doesn’t have to mean that.”

“I want it to.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow and sits up on his haunches. His dick is visible, this way. “You’re sure?”

Steve’s eyes widen at the sight of him, and Bucky begins to sigh. Then Steve says, matter of fact, “I didn’t realize you were Jewish.”

A laugh startles out of Bucky’s chest, and Steve watches the way it makes Bucky’s cock sway. His pink tongue wets his lips. He seems sure enough, so Bucky trails his fingers over Steve’s knobbly knees and tells him, “Turn over.”

He gets on his hands and knees, and Bucky gets his hands on him. There isn’t much to grab hold of; Bucky’s palms meet bone when he spreads his cheeks apart. Steve’s chest hitches on a breath when Bucky thumbs at his hole. He’s tight; of course he’s tight. Bucky feels it in his lungs, how tight he is. He’s shiny clean, too. Maybe he washed just for this. It’s not hard to picture: Steve with soapy hands against himself, right here, in this spot.

When he spits, Steve yelps—a sound that peters out into a murmur when Bucky rubs his saliva into his skin. He keeps his jelly in a cigar box between the mattress and the bed frame; his hand splays warm over Steve’s spine while he leans over to grab it. Bucky coats his fingers, then coats Steve’s hole, and reaches with his free hand between Steve’s legs to rub his cock while he works one fingerprint against him.

“Bucky,” Steve whines.

“Is it too much?” He just repeats Bucky’s name in the same pitch. “Shh,” Bucky tells him, and pushes his finger inside to explore. He’ll be fine, Bucky thinks, so long as they go slow.

He ought to grab a rubber, but he’s sure that he isn’t carrying anything, and Steve is virginal clean. His small body trembles when Bucky bends down to kiss his shoulders. “You still want this?” he asks in his ear.

Steve nods. “I do.”

Pushing into him is damn near excruciating. Broad, hot daylight pours in through the window as Bucky’s cock is slowly swallowed by Steve’s body. He pants at the feeling; it sticks heavy and hard in his nerves. Steve groans out a curse. The skin of his back is deep, splotchy pink—a Rorshach test in blood. Bucky can’t read anything in it; he just sees Steve.

His first thrust sends Steve to his elbows. He clutches at Bucky’s pillow and buries his face in it as Bucky starts to fuck him in earnest. He tries for slow. He aims for gentle, but he loses all sense around Steve on his best days. Soon he’s leaning over him, grinding into him in short, snapping thrusts while Steve moans. His voice pitches higher than Bucky would have guessed him capable.

Steve reaches a hand up and gets his fingers in Bucky’s curls. He grips hard enough to pull hair out, bringing Bucky’s face close to his so that his whines land right in Bucky’s ear. It’s like the symphony. He wishes the world could hear the music Steve’s making; he’s desperately glad that it’s just for him.

His orgasm hits him like a right hook to the gut. He swears and shifts backward, but it’s too late: half his release spills into Steve, and the rest lands on his skin in thin ribbons. “Hell,” he groans, while the last of the feeling rattles around and echoes in his bones. Steve’s body clutches at nothing, white dribbling down.

He’s quiet on the bed beneath Bucky, now. His neck shines with sweat; his sharp shoulder blades rise and fall too fast. Bucky pets at his hip. He doesn’t know how to be sentimental, even when he wants to. Steve’s got his eyes closed. Even after coming, Bucky feels full to the brim, though he’s not quite sure of what.

Eventually Bucky clambers off him, and off the bed. He grabs the only hand towel he owns and wets it with cold water, then turns back to Steve. “Here,” he says.

Steve’s head lolls on the pillow for a while before he lifts it enough to see what Bucky’s offering. He squints and frowns. “What’s that for?”

Bucky points to his bare behind, still shining with come. Steve cranes his neck to see it and says, “Oh. Wow.”

“I’m sorry. Here, I can—”

“I’ll do it,” Steve says, and takes the towel. He doesn’t move to clean himself up immediately. Instead, he just stares at Bucky’s semen drying on his skin, like it’s fascinating. Bucky feels his face coloring about it, so he turns away to the carton of cigarettes he keeps on top of the ice box. It’s still mostly full; he mostly doesn’t smoke, except for when he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands.

By the time he turns back to lean against the counter, Steve is done with the towel. He hands it back to Bucky, who tosses it in the sink, before curling onto his side on the bed. The blankets are as disheveled as his hair. He watches Bucky light his cigarette with a clear, open face.

Bucky takes an easy drag off his smoke. “I didn’t hurt you,” he says, “did I?”

“No,” Steve answers.

“Did you like it?”

“I don’t know.”

Bucky’s mouth twitches. Always honest. “You get used to it.”

Steve’s eyes trace him with something that feels like precision. He seems to linger on the things that are new to him: Bucky’s stomach, his thighs, his now-soft dick. It’s unnerving to be the center of such focused attention. Bucky tries to stay still for him.

“I want to draw you like this,” Steve says.

“You draw?”

“All the time.”

There’s still so much to learn about this kid. Even now they’re practically strangers. Bucky exhales smoke and asks, “Have you ever drawn me before?”

The pink in Steve’s cheeks gives him away, but before he can answer, he erupts in coughs. His body thrashes with it. “Steve!” Bucky gasps—then remembers the wheezing. “Dammit.” He stubs out his cigarette in the sink and lunges across the room. Their legs tangle on the bed as he struggles to unstick the humid-swollen window to throw it open. Once it’s wide, he fans the air, trying to bring the fresh stuff to Steve’s poor lungs. As fresh as it gets in New York, anyway.

Slowly, the coughing calms. Steve sits up, his face still tucked into his elbow, and holds himself steady with a hand on Bucky’s hip. “Sorry,” he rasps.

“Don’t be,” Bucky says. “I’ll get you some water.”

Steve’s fingers flex on his hip. “No. Stay.”

“Alright.”

He settles with his back to the wall, and pulls Steve’s limp limbs in beside him. He tucks neatly against Bucky’s side, as if they were a matched set. The thought feels fire-warm in his center. Steve shifts and turns, a veritable snuggler when he isn’t kicking up a fight. His cock, somehow still half-hard after all that, presses into Bucky’s thigh; he ruts into the contact a few times.

“Here,” Bucky says. He shifts Steve again and wraps a spit-wet palm around his cock, wondering at himself for not taking care of him earlier. Steve gasps and squirms, but Bucky holds him still with his free arm wrapped around his ribs, keeping him calm and cool while he works him over. A short two minutes, and Steve erupts over Bucky’s fist with a sparking shout.

It’s still light out. Golden, like Steve’s fine hair, catching the sun when Bucky runs his clean hand through it. Steve sighs and settles, his arms a tight net around Bucky’s waist.

“Will you tell me how old you really are?” Bucky asks.

Steve’s breath is warm against Bucky’s bare chest. “Does it matter?”

“No, not really.”

“I’m eighteen in July.”

A smile tugs at Bucky’s mouth. “I knew it.”

“Can I stay for a while longer? I don’t want to go home yet.”

Bucky breathes deep, and lets his eyes slide closed. It feels like morning to him, even though the sun is setting. A new day peaking over the edges. Surely he has some pencils and paper somewhere, so Steve can draw him like he wants. Bucky would like to see that.

He still has so much to learn about Steve Rogers.

Bucky presses a kiss to his hair and says, “Stay as long as you’d like, kid.”


End file.
